Patricia Mou

In other words, their pursuit of happiness seems more successful than ours because it is not a solitary endeavor. African happiness is a joint enterprise, something that can only be created by the whole. I am happy because we are happy. Much contentment arises from a sense of family, community, and connectedness.

For a community to remain healthy, it is crucial to periodically “prune” its structures—removing systems that no longer support the purpose of the tribe. You want to preserve the essence, while getting rid of the frills. Good pruning mechanisms also create more space for innovation—you don’t risk getting stuck with useless systems that stick around... See more

Most of us, however, develop a portfolio of meaning – we have multiple sources of it in our lives, and cannot in fact derive it from only one source any more than we can be healthy on a diet of bread and water.

Growing your tribe creates more resources that can allow you to reach higher goals. New people bring in new knowledge, new ideas, more attention, etc. At the same time, as the tribe grows it becomes increasingly harder to maintain highly trust-based group dynamics.

Sometimes, learning what you don’t want might be as important as discovering what you do. That’s growing, too.

Coordinating with other humans is key to achieving lasting impact. Coordination helps us grow our well of common knowledge, build things, become better humans and create more value for the world than we could on our own.

You don’t owe anyone your time. You owe it to society to become a producer.